Ex-Spartan football star says MSU cost him NFL job

GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Facing a lawsuit for its handling of an alleged sex assault by a former football star, Michigan State University is now being sued by the player, Keith Mumphery, who says MSU cost him a job in the NFL.

Mumphery says he was initially cleared by MSU, then banished after the alleged sex-assault victim appealed its findings. He was then cut by the Houston Texans after her lawsuit against the university made headlines.

Mumphrey's lawsuit is the latest sports-related claim against MSU, its Board of Trustees and former president Lou Anna Simon, who resigned in the wake of the Larry Nassar scandal in which the ex-MSU doctor molested hundreds of young athletes.

The alleged sex-assault victim in the Mumphrey case, identified in court records by a pseudonym, Jane Doe, said Mumphery sexually assaulted her on March 17, 2015, after she invited him to her dormitory room after she had been drinking.

Mumphery, who graduated in 2014 and played his last year as a fifth-year senior, was not charged criminally. The university eventually banned him from campus, from June 7, 2016, to Dec. 31, 2018.

MSU acknowledged the delay in the investigation but said it was warranted to fully look at the allegations.

The woman filed her lawsuit against MSU in U.S. District Court in November. In its response, MSU denied her allegations that the university violated her Title IX rights and that it was deliberately indifferent to her complaint.

In his lawsuit, Mumphery asserted violations of his rights to due process and Title IX, which offers students protection from gender-based discrimination in educational programs or activities.

"Despite a previously unblemished record and Michigan State's initial finding of 'no responsibility,' Plaintiff now finds himself permanently dismissed from Michigan State based on false allegations of sexual misconduct and sexual exploitation by a female Michigan State student ...," attorney Brian Koncius wrote in the lawsuit, filed Tuesday, May 22.

"In addition, Plaintiff is unable to play football professionally because of the specious charges and erroneous findings against him, having been cut by his employer, the Houston Texans, the day after a newspaper report in Houston questioned how the Texans could have hired a player who had been expelled from college for sexual assault.

"Since being cut by the Texans, Plaintiff has been unable to find a job in his chosen profession."

The attorney said MSU found him "responsible" for sexual misconduct only in response to the alleged victim's appeal of its "not responsible" finding.

"There was no proper hearing, there was no cross-examination; there was no sworn testimony, and the evidence that supposedly supported (the alleged victim's) false allegations was originally determined to exonerate Plaintiff," Koncius said.

Because of MSU's disciplinary action, Mumphery cannot complete a graduate degree at MSU in communications - a field he planned to pursue after his career as a professional athlete - and he is probably barred from admission to other schools in the state, his attorney said.

"No new evidence substantiating (the woman's) claim was found. The findings of the initial Investigative Report were merely re-interpreted in (her) favor."

At the time, he said, MSU and other universities were under pressure by the Obama Administration's U.S. Department of Education to aggressively pursue investigations of campus sex-assault allegations or risk losing federal funding.

Those accused of sexual misconduct are treated "with a presumption of guilt," the attorney said.

The alleged victim's attorneys said the university "absolutely failed" to protect her or provide accommodations she was entitled to.

"In her Complaint, Plaintiff pled that she was sexually assaulted by a fellow student, a notable MSU football player, in her dormitory room on school grounds, that she notified the appropriate authorities of the rape, the Defendants offered her no protections or accommodations, that defendant's first investigation was deemed arbitrary and capricious, that Defendants have a culture of protecting male athletes against claims of sexual assault, that after the second investigating Plaintiff was again not offered protections or accommodations, that, indeed, the Defendants invited Plaintiff's attacker to return to MSU and East Lansing to attend sporting related events despite the fact that Plaintiff was still a student," attorneys Karen Truszkowski and Julie Jacot wrote.

The lawsuit said he attended an MSU-sponsored football camp on June 18, 2016, and was invited to a June 17, 2016 golf outing sponsored by the university. He was not supposed to be at MSU then, the lawsuit said.